At the end of August, I was feeling in pain & worried about my leg. I had a clot many years ago & wondered if that was what was causing the pain this time. 

Hospital Stay 2018.

More of a worry to me was that four years ago I had been rushed to a hospital in Barcelona, close to death I was treated for Necrotizing Fascitis & Sepsis & a repeat of this was terrifying.

Quironsalud hospital.

I have private medical insurance & the agent that helped me get the insurance, Miguel at Liberty Seguros, was able to get an ambulance to take me to the hospital, I was taken to this hospital as it was on the list of private hospitals I can use. I was taken in to see a Doctor & after explaining my medical history, I had recently been diagnosed & treated for gout, he diagnosed Bursitis gave me a lot of tablets, sent me home & told me to rest.

Second visit to Quironsalud hospital.

After five days I was in agony & really worried. I could hardly move & unable to make the ambulance service understand my predicament, I managed to get into a wheelchair that I have in the apartment & wheeled myself down to the Chiringuito outside my apartment. I went here as I know the owner Andrew & know he is fluent in Spanish. After a lot of conversation, in Spanish, being transferred from one department to another & back again, Andrew was able to call an ambulance with my private medical insurance. Over two hours after my initial call an ambulance arrived & took me back to the hospital.

This time I saw a different Doctor who looked at my right leg in horror, I explained to her that the scars that she was looking at were old scars & not on the leg I was suffering pain in. She took note of all my previous medical history & immediately got a string of blood tests done & I got moved to a triage unit to wait for the results. After a few hours, the results came back & the Doctor came back to see me. She told me that I did have a clot or thrombosis & that they would be keeping me in the hospital.

I was taken to a very nice room for one person. Within an hour I was taken to have chest & lung scans, as well as scans on my leg. Luckily my chest & lungs were shown to be clear but the nurse doing the Doppler scan on my leg showed me the scan which showed two, possibly three clots in my leg.

That evening a consultant came to see me, he told me to stop taking all of the medication I was already on & prescribed me new tablets including twice-daily injections of heparin, directly into my teeny weeny stomach, to help decrease the clot in my leg. He explained that my leg basically had a clot the length of the leg as the separate clots had joined up.

Along with other clot-decreasing tablets that I took daily, he prescribed a new tablet for my acid reflux. I did however have a problem with the pain killer that he prescribed me, Nolotil, it has been banned in the UK, Ireland, USA, Australia & many Northern European countries. It is still used in all Mediterranean countries & from what I have been able to find out it affects everyone from outside the Mediterranean area badly but is fine for people born & living around the Mediterranean. Many different stories can be found out about it but I refused it. Luckily the consultant agreed with me & prescribed me a Tramadol / Paracetamol pain killer which worked okay.

After nine days the heparin injections in my stomach were stopped & daily blood tests started. After twelve days the consultant said that I could go home. He prescribed me Simaritin to decrease the clot further which I will be on for a minimum of three months, Pantoprazole Cinfa for the reflux acid & Tramadol / Paracetamol pain killers. I also have to see my local doctor once a week to have blood tests to regulate the amount of Sintrom I have to take to decrease the blood clotting.

My full recovery will be a long term thing & I will most probably be on some of the tablets for life but I am still here & glad to be here. Since leaving the hospital I have sold my car. As most of you that know me, know, I used to walk everywhere & it was left in my garage all the time. I thought about it & decided to sell it & buy myself a full-size disability scooter.

I used to have problems walking & always knew that one day I may need to get one, this has just moved the purchase forward a bit. The sale of my car will give me the ability to get a nice mobility scooter. I am now waiting to have a charging point put in the garage at my apartment so that I can keep it there. I have been using a small scooter that I can charge & get up to my apartment but it is not, unfortunately, big enough for me & the range on it is quite small, enough to get to the local shop, but not along the beach & back, as I found out.

Thank you.

I would like to say thank you to so many people. Thank you Miguel for calling my original ambulance. A huge thank you to Andrew for calling it the second time I needed it, I really was ill on this occasion & was very emotional, tired & in a lot of pain. Thank you to my friend Jan, for waiting with me when she saw me waiting for the ambulance & for taking my apartment keys & checking on it for me.

A big thank you to my friends who took the time to come to see me in hospital. As nice a hospital as it was, it was very boring being on my own in a grey room with no view & no one to talk to. Thank you for bringing in underwear, shaving equipment & other washing items. Thank you for bringing in fruit, water & lots of naughty crisps, biscuits & sweets. A big thank you to Angelia, Wayne, Steve, Carol, Jill, Peter, Donna, Alan, Jacquie, Sandra & Pat for making the time pass quicker by visiting me. A great big thank you to Pat for picking me up from the hospital & driving me to get my tablets, then home & checking that I was safe when I got home.

I would also like to thank everyone that kept in touch with me via Facebook once I had my computer. For your lovely comments wishing me a quick return to health & all of the wonderful comments from people enjoying 'Agent Sharkys' stories from the hospital.

Facebook is often abused by people but for people like me, alone in a hospital it is a lifeline & stops boredom. I was lucky enough to be talking on a daily basis to people from my home town in Los Alcázares in Spain, friends & family in England, Wales, America & Australia & I thank all of you for your kind comments.

Last but not least I would like to thank Ian who helped me when I got out, providing me with a mobility scooter to use for a few days. Unfortunately, it wasn't big enough for me long term but it did allow me to get to the shop without having to ask someone to go for me.